Posts Tagged ‘Murray Chass’

I’m sometimes nostalgic for the days of literary feuds. Back when novelists were important public figures and you had TV hosts like Dick Cavett and Jack Parr and David Susskind who gave feuding writers like Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer a platform to have at it.

So imagine my excitment upon reading venerable baseball scribe Murray Chass go off on his one-time NYT colleague Selena Roberts for her thinly sourced A-Rod book. Granted it’s not Vidal-Buckley, but it’ll do. The title of his column (found at www.murraychass.com) pretty much sums up the mood: ROBERTS WHIFFS ON A-ROD AND ‘ROIDS. Here’s an excerpt:

Roberts and I were once colleagues at The New York Times, and I can’t say she established that credibility. She also didn’t strike me as being a top-flight reporter. As a result, I don’t feel I can trust her book full of anonymous sources. Even if every single A-Rod transgression she reports is accurate, it’s too easy for her to write one former teammate said this and another player said that.

Also, check out his bio – he’s one old school cat. Split an infinitive and it’s pistols at dawn.